Here’s a Jeopardy!-style question for you: “Eight different species of whales can be seen in these two American seas.” Unless you’re an Iñupiaq, a marine biologist, or an Arctic enthusiast like me, it’s a pretty good guess that you can’t tell me what those seas are or what those whales are either. The answer: the Chukchi Sea and the adjacent Beaufort Sea, off Arctic Alaska, and you can commonly spot bowhead, beluga, and grey whales there, while fin whales, minkes, humpbacks, killer whales, and narwhals are all venturing into these seas ever more often as the Arctic and its waters continue to warm rapidly.
The problem, however, is that the major oil company Royal Dutch Shell wants to drill in the Chukchi Sea this summer and that could, in the long term, spell doom for one of the last great, relatively untouched oceanic environments on the planet. Let me explain why Shell’s drilling ambitions are so dangerous. Just think of the way the blowout of one drilling platform, BP’s Deepwater Horizon, devastated ...

Here's a Jeopardy!-style question for you: “Eight different species of whales can be seen in these two American seas.” Unless you're an Iñupiaq, a marine biologist, or an Arctic enthusiast like me, it's a pretty good guess that you can't tell me what those seas are or what those whales are either. The answer: the Chukchi Sea and the adjacent Beaufort Sea, off Arctic Alaska, and you can commonly spot bowhead, beluga, and grey whales there, while fin whales, minkes, humpbacks, killer whales, and (...)
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See witsendnj's post about the video he made.
Many environmentally related posts appearing at Daily Kos each week don't attract the attention they deserve. To help get more eyeballs, Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) normally appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The most recent Saturday Spotlight can be seen here . More than 21,900 environmentally oriented diaries have been rescued for inclusion in this weekly collection since 2006. Inclusion of a diary in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
Black Death in Europe Was Caused by Climate Change in Asia & Trade, not Rats —by FishOutofWater: "The black death killed thirty to fifty percent of the people of Europe in six years starting in 1347. Plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, ravaged Europe in wave after wave for over 300 years, then slowly faded to black after the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666. This, the second plague pandemic, has ...

The US National Academy of Sciences announced its long-awaited reports on climate geoengineering in mid-February. The reports intelligently state at the outset that geoengineering is no substitute for reducing emissions. But the call for experimentation and research - and for federal government funding for it - is pervasive, loud and clear. And worrisome. A similar call for research was published as a commentary in Nature.
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The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced its long-awaited reports on climate geoengineering in mid-February. The reports intelligently state at the outset that geoengineering is no substitute for reducing emissions. But the call for experimentation and research - and for federal government funding for it - is pervasive, loud and clear. And worrisome. A similar call for research was published as a commentary in Nature, conveniently timed just a few ...

When carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and cars rise into the atmosphere, they don't always stay there. While the majority of these emissions hang around to create the greenhouse effect that causes global warming, up to 35 percent of man-made carbon falls into the ocean. When that happens, the pH level of the ocean drops, causing a phenomenon known as ocean acidification. Some scientists call this the "evil twin" of climate change .
Over the last century, the oceans have become about 30 percent more acidic , a faster rate of change than at anytime in the last 300 million years. That's really bad news for any sea creatures that live in hard shells (shellfish) or have bony exoskeletons (i.e., crabs and lobsters), and for coral . Fish larvae and plankton can also be affected. And since many of these organisms are food for bigger fish and mammals, ocean acidification puts the whole marine ecosystem at risk .
Of course, humans depend on these critters as well, especially in coastal communities whose ...

The strategy Bill Gates lays out for his $42 billion Foundation -- largely ignore the climate problem while suggesting action isn't urgent -- is the one most likely to undo his goal of ensuring the long-term health and economic well-being of the world's poorest nations.

Labor government appoints state’s first ever reef minister as it steps up plan to avoid the UN listing the ecosystem as ‘in danger’

The Queensland government may adopt tough new regulations to tackle the amount of pollution flowing onto the Great Barrier Reef, with the state’s first ever reef minister vowing to strengthen protections to avoid the ecosystem being listed as “in danger” by the UN.

The new Labor government has promised to slash the amount of nitrogen flowing on to the reef from key catchments by 80% by 2025, while also cutting total suspended sediment reaching the reef by 50% by the same year.

Ecology has always been a bit doughy compared to subject like physics, chemistry, and hell, even biology. But cut ecologists some slack. The places they study, like alpine prairies, peat bogs, or oases, are the diametric opposite of controlled lab settings. So how do you bring hard data to the study of life on our soft planet? A new ...

See citisven's post about this anti-fracking protest in Oakland, California.
Many environmentally related posts appearing at Daily Kos each week don't attract the attention they deserve. To help get more eyeballs, Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) normally appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The most recent Saturday Spotlight can be seen here . More than 21,820 environmentally oriented diaries have been rescued for inclusion in this weekly collection since 2006. Inclusion of a diary in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
The Mindnapped and the Evil Rays of Silence —by James Wells: "Beware of the stations where the facts are based on lies/Some of them are run by aliens in disguise/They sneak up behind you and put your brain in a box./You can recognize the victims, because they're watching Fox ~Nursery rhyme. Certain people can stop a good conversation, especially if it involves reality-based topics ...

Two pessimistic National Academy reports on "geoengineering" reject the term because “we felt ‘engineering’ implied a level of control that is illusory.” They find "There is no substitute for dramatic reductions in the emissions of CO2 ... to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change."

(Image: Setting sun , skull profile via Shutterstock; Edited; JR/TO )
As we continue to learn of terrifying developments resulting from human-caused climate disruption, scientists are now predicting mass die-offs and species extinction, and rising rates of chronic disease in humans related to air pollution.
(Image: Setting sun , skull profile via Shutterstock; Edited; JR/TO )
I'm graced to live adjacent to Olympic National Park and have it as my backyard sanctuary.
Recently, I hiked up to an alpine lake at 5,000 feet, where my friend John and I pitched camp and settled in to climb a nearby peak. The clear, rarified air wafting through sub-alpine fir expands the soul, not to mention the power of the incredible mountain views.
But the trip, fantastic weather and summit aside, had a bittersweet edge to it.
To see more stories like this, visit "Planet or Profit?"
We are at high latitude in upper Washington State, relative to the rest of the contiguous 48 states. The trip was in late January, and on the climb ...

The damage afforded by our emissions on changing the climate are compounded by large-scale pollution of the oceans and overfishing as if they are going out of fashion. And they are! The realisation here is that we are going to lose many more marine plants and animals than we thought, unless the stress of conservation shifts to less-known animals and plants.

That video was captured by by EdMass and retitled Climate Change: The Best Evah Weather Report .
Many environmentally related posts appearing at Daily Kos each week don't attract the attention they deserve. To help get more eyeballs, Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue) normally appears twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The most recent Wednesday Spotlight can be seen here . More than 21,740 environmentally oriented diaries have been rescued for inclusion in this weekly collection since 2006. Inclusion of a diary in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of it.
Because of the relatively small number of eco-diaries the past few days, the categories usually included with the Green Spotlight have been dropped for this edition only.
The Ugly Truth about Methane Pollution from Fracking —by Earthworks Action: "Recently, the Obama administration came out with its plans to regulate methane from oil and gas wells. These rules ...

The interior of the Concorde aircraft at the Scotland Museum of Flight. (Photo: Magnus Hagdorn )
Touting "sci-fi climate solutions" - untested technologies not really scalable to the dimensions of our climate change crisis - dangerously delays the day when we actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The interior of the Concorde aircraft at the Scotland Museum of Flight. (Photo: Magnus Hagdorn )
Help Truthout keep publishing stories like this: They can’t be found in corporate media! Make a tax-deductible donation today.
Touting "sci-fi climate solutions" - untested technologies not really scalable to the dimensions of our climate change crisis - dangerously delays the day when we actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Last week, I took my son to Scotland's Museum of Flight. Its proudest exhibit: a Concorde. To me, it looked stunningly futuristic. "How old," remarked my son, looking at the confusing array of pre-digital controls in the cockpit. Watching the accompanying video - "Past Dreams of the ...